


Come Springtime

by katajainen



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Blue Mountains | Ered Luin, Developing Friendships, Dwarven crafts, Ered Luin shenanigans, Family Secrets, Female Nori (Tolkien), Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pre-Quest of Erebor, Ri Family Feels, Slice of Life, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-03 13:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12749259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen
Summary: First, Kíli wonders why his brother would bother finding out what had upset Balin’s apprentice.Then he discovers it was his fault to begin with, whether he intended it or not.Time to set things to rights – only it's not all that simple. (And Gimli wants to help, but people tell him he's too little. He'snot.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> And this is why I requested 'no art' when I signed up for the challenge – I strongly suspected I wouldn't be able to keep the posting schedule, and it would have been unfair to the poor artist.
> 
> (In other words: this is the fic that I tried to write for the Hobbit Big Bang 2017. Late as it is, I'm still posting it into the collection, because damn it, I **finished** the thing.)
> 
> But hey, it's also my longest attempt at a Gen fic yet, enjoy!
> 
> Thanks to [Saraste](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste) for the beta (she has a truly admirable reserve of patience for author whining I tell you).

‘Lake’ was what they called it, even if it wasn’t much of a one, even Kíli had to admit that, only a shallow spring-fed pool carved by the flow of water itself: born instead of made. At one end, the overflow trickled into a narrow canal that followed the tunnel wall until the bridge. There, the water fell down a sheer drop, its soft tinkle lost in the low ceaseless noise of the underground stream far below: a faint hum in winter that grew into a dull roar in spring.

It was still big enough to house a colony of pale feather-gilled salamanders, and even paler fish that had webs of skin growing over their eyes. The fish were too small to be worth catching, but would nibble at your skin if you dangled your feet in the cold water for long enough.

Big or small, they could call it what they wanted between themselves, for no-one but Kíli and his brother knew of it.

But even more important than the lake itself were the many passages leading away from the cavern like the spokes of a wheel from the hub. Some were open for anyone to walk into, but those were the short and boring ones. Those that were longer and more worthy of exploring had been closed off at some point, but often the blockades had collapsed, leaving openings too narrow for a grown dwarf, but just right for Kíli and his brother to squeeze through. Fíli had said the walls hadn’t come down because they were old, but because of the same reason there were cracks in the walls and ceilings and floors here and there in the less used tunnels and halls. A quake, Fíli’s Master had told him (and it had had something to do with the sea, which made no sense to Kíli because the sea was on the Western side of Ered Luin). Most of the closed-off tunnels were even stable enough to be safe, or so Fíli said, and he was the one learning stone-dowsing.

That was where they had been headed, following a now-familiar route through narrow tunnels and stairs worn soft by age and moisture, when they saw the light.

Someone else was at _their place._

‘Who–´ Kíli started, but Fíli shushed him. ‘Hush yourself!’ Kíli hissed back. Fíli made a face and shoved at him, but then they crept the last bit down to the lake as quietly as they could. The passage opened out into the high cavern, and the dim glow resolved into a bright yellow heart of a lamp, much like the ones Kíli and his brother carried with them. A small figure was huddling beside the light at the water’s edge.

‘Oi! What are you doing here?’ Fíli demanded.

Ori – because that was who it was – scrambled to his feet, hastily wiping his face with the back of one hand. ‘I–’ he started.

‘Get out! You’ve no right to be here, this is–’

‘Shut it, Kee,’ Fíli snapped. ‘Ori, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, it’s nothing. I’m sorry, I didn’t–’ Ori snatched up his lamp and satchel, nearly dropping both in his hurry. ‘Sorry,’ he repeated and made to duck past them into the passage.

‘But–’

‘Don’t.’ Ori twisted his arm free when Fïli made to stop him, and took off running. Soon even the echo of his pounding feet on the stone was gone, the cave silent save for the sound of water. Fíli turned to his brother.

‘Why did you have to chase him off? He couldn’t know, it’s not like we have a gate and a lock.’

‘Maybe we should!’ Kíli shot over his shoulder, heading around the lake towards the closed-off doorway Fíli had _sworn_ hid a stair going up.

‘He can get a map and find his own place, if he’s so clever,’ he muttered and peered between the loose stones. The beam of light cast by his lamp showed dancing dust and deep darkness ahead. Kíli tapped his fingers at the nearest wall, impatiently, without even trying to get a proper feel of it.

Last time they had been down here, Fíli had gone on and on about weaknesses and fracture lines and how the empty space behind the crumbling wall was stair-shaped, not tunnel-shaped. Kíli had only caught a fuzzy impression of solid stone and emptiness. ‘That one has less stone-sense than what Mahal gave a cave-fish,’ uncle Glóin had once said. Mum had smacked him. Kíli himself did not give a tinker’s damn – Fíli had enough for both of them. ‘Are we going in here or not?’ he called back.

*    *    *

Kíli’s arms and shoulders ached from prying at loose stones, and they were both scuffed and dusty from squirming past stone and old mortar. The closed-off stair had been steep, the tunnel on top narrow, and the second flight of stairs both steep and narrow. But the sun and wind on their faces were worth it: as Kíli sat on the ledge, the remains of the abandoned lookout clinging to the cliffside behind him, he could see the water gushing out of the River-gate in a glittering arc far beneath his dangling feet. From the gate onwards, the canal followed the road, straight and shining like a new-polished blade, until it met the silvery ribbon of Little Lune where the river wound its twisting course along the western edge of the valley.

‘That was odd, wasn’t it?’ Fíli said after a while.

‘What was?’ Kíli had gathered a handful of broken flint, and started flicking the bits down the mountain one by one.

‘That he was hiding,’ Fíli said.

‘Ori? Nah – why would he need to hide?’ Kíli scoffed. ‘He doesn’t have the guts to get into trouble.’

‘How can you tell? You hardly ever speak to him.’

‘Don’t be daft: he’s Balin’s apprentice.’ Kíli countered, because that was explanation enough. ‘Never puts a word wrong, because he never says anything. And I bet you he doesn’t even know how to swear.’ Kíli brushed the stone dust off his hands. ‘He’s a bloody _mouse_ , Fíli.’

‘That’s unfair, Kíli. Besides, he _was_ upset over something.’

‘What if he was? Why would you care?’

Fíli gave a small shrug, still gazing out over the valley. The peaks to their left were tinged orange and gold by the westering sun; they would need to head home soon. ‘Because I do,’ he said quietly. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

*    *    *   

It was nearly a week later when they caught Ori leaving the Fundinul house, and ‘We’re sorry’ was the first thing Fíli said to him. ‘For jumping on you like that the other day,’ he added when Ori looked at them with a confused frown. ‘It’s not like we own the lake.’

‘That’s not what you said,’ Balin’s apprentice replied, glancing sideways at Kíli.

Kíli shrugged. ‘If Fíli says it ain’t ours, then it ain’t ours. It’s free for you or anyone else.’ _And you better be grateful for that_ , he thought to himself.

‘Um. Thank you. That’s nice, I suppose.’ Ori shifted on his feet. ‘Is there anything else? Only, I should be–’

‘One more thing.’

That Fíli would invite Ori to come _with them_ was going too far, and Kíli was glad he didn’t seem too keen.

‘Is it safe? I mean, shouldn’t you tell someone where you’re going?’

‘You’re not going to rat on us, are you?’ Kíli snapped.

‘No!’ Ori shuffled back a step. ‘I won’t tell. It’s just… old tunnels, well, they might be unstable.’

‘Some are,’ Fíli admitted, ‘but they’re easy to tell from the good ones. And we always take care.’

‘Don’t bother – you can’t make him come if he doesn’t dare!’ Kíli couldn’t understand why his brother was so set on persuading Ori.

‘It’s all right,’ Ori said, ‘I have deliveries to run. Maybe some other time.’

‘I never meant right now. We have somewhere to be, too, don’t we, Kee?’

‘And we need something to eat first, I’m starving. Can we please go already?’

‘Wait a bit – Ori, where did you say you were going?’ Fíli waited while Ori rattled off a list of half a dozen workshops and trading-houses, then grinned. ‘Great! That’s on our way. What do you say we tag along while you drop off whatever it is you need to drop off, and then you come and have a snack with us? My treat.’

Kíli opened his mouth to protest at the detour, but closed it again because Ori looked so much like he would refuse. The young scribe shifted the bulging satchel on his hip, and looked at each of them in turn, an uncertain expression on his face.

‘I don’t really know if I should,’ he said slowly.

‘Please! I have this thing to draw for a job, only this one bit comes out crooked every time I try… You can have a pie for an advance if you take a look at it.’

Ori looked thoughtful. ‘Ham-and-mushroom pie?’

‘Your pick, my treat.’ And that was Fíli’s winning grin all right.

‘The fun,’ Kíli heard him explain to Ori when they finally were walking down from the market towards the training grounds, ‘is listening to Dwalin yelling at people that ain’t us.’

If anyone had bothered to ask Kíli, half of the fun was _not_ standing in the viewing gallery proper, but perching above it. There were tall niches carved into the walls at regular intervals, each one with a perfectly square smooth hollow at the bottom. No-one they had asked was quite certain what they had been made for, but most people guessed there had been statues. Kíli had not told anyone, but sometimes he liked to imagine there had been statues of drakes, fire and cold both; no matter that he well knew they had more likely been of kings or somesuch. Dragons, at least, would have been exiting.

Lacking statues, though, each empty niche now made fine sitting place for two young people, and now three in a pinch. Kíli thought it was a nice change not to be the only one Fíli had to boost up.

‘Is he always like that?’ Ori asked after a while, munching thoughtfully on his last mouthful. ‘Mister Dwalin,’ he clarified.

‘Like what?’

‘Glaring at people.’ Ori drew his knees up against his chest, huddled small. ‘Yelling at them if they’re not quick enough.’

‘Never seen him much different,’ said Fíli. ‘He yells harder at us, if anything, _because_ we’re kin. But he’s all bluster, and no bite, if you ask me. That is, if you haven’t actually done anything.’

‘I wonder…’ Ori said quietly, picking pastry crumbs off the front of his tunic. The bell struck a half-hour, and he made to get up. ‘I have to go. Thank you for the food!’

‘Thank yourself for the help!’ Fíli waved at him with a folded bit of paper that now had more Ori’s penmanship than Fíli’s on it. ‘And don’t forget about the spelunking! That offer is still on when you have the time!’

*    *    *

Time, as Fíli always said, was something that worked itself out. Two days later, they happened to spot Ori at the marketplace just as the two of them had an hour or three to spare before supper. Kíli insisted they leave him be, for who knew how long it would take him to settle whatever it was he was arguing with the merchant – a caravan leader, by the look of his gear. But Fíli got his way, and they waited. They were too far to hear what was being said, but the back-and-forth of suggestion, rebuttal and counter-argument was clear, as was the dejected look on Ori’s face as the tiny scribe eventually turned to go.

Kíli was sure he would refuse when Fíli asked him along. He was wrong.

‘Looks like you had a bit of a bad luck with timing back there,’ Fíli said as they headed down. ‘No-one fancies a change of plans when the first wagon’s halfway out the gate.’

‘What? Oh, that was nothing,’ Ori said quickly. ‘It wasn’t Master Balin’s business or anything.’

‘Your brother’s shop, then?’

Ori muttered something that could be either yes or no or neither, and asked Fíli about the old tunnels, which meant that no-one else got a word in sideways before they were at the lake.

There, Ori stopped just inside the passage leading out of the cavern and started rifling through his satchel. ‘Wait a bit, please.’ He squatted beside the wall and there was a scritching sound.

Kíli bent down to peer over his shoulder. ’You’re _drawing_? Whatever for?’

‘Mine sign. In case of… well, in case something goes awry.’

‘Oh.’ Then curiosity won over. ‘How come you know how to write mine sign?’ Kíli asked.

‘The way I learnt to write anything. Someone taught me.’ Ori straightened and closed his bag. ‘Shouldn’t we be going?’

At the end of this passage was a flight of stairs that went both down and up, and after a brief argument they decided to try the lower level first. The stair soon turned upon itself, then back, descending in shallow loops. A smooth trough ran down on one side, perfect for sliding cargo down or pulling it up.

‘Pity we can’t slide down.’ Kíli said after the first two switchbacks. ‘It’d surely be faster.’

‘Next time, Kee. When we know there’s nothing you can smash into at the bottom.’

‘Takes all the fun out when your brother’s being an old hen, doesn’t it?’

‘You think that’s bad? You haven’t met _my_ brother.’

To his surprise, Kíli found himself laughing with Ori, while Fíli huffed. ‘Stone-dowsers are meant to be keeping people _alive_ , you pillocks.’

At last they came to a landing where doorways opened on both sides. Bringing his lamp closer, Kíli could see faint signs scritched to wall beside each passage.

‘Ori?’ he asked, ‘Can you read these?’

Fíli stepped past him into the first tunnel, trailing his hand on the wall, then doubled back.

‘This one’s collapsed, right?’ he said.

Ori nodded. ‘At fifty yards or so, says here.’ He turned to the next door. ‘This one’s flooded. And this one’s a dead end. The ore ran out. And this–’ he stopped of a sudden and went a strange colour. ‘Never mind.’

‘Come on!’ Kíli peered at the last inscription. ‘Now wait, this is no mine sign: “Hrafn has…” I can’t make out the rest.’

‘That one’s mine sign. Iron, lot of.’

‘So? What if someone had a bunch of iron?’

‘It’s not– I don’t think they meant iron,’ Ori mumbled, ‘It’s shorthand for a hammer.’

Kíli snorted. ‘So it says “I have a huge hammer?”’ How do _you_ even know something like that?’

‘I just know.’

‘Come on – you didn’t learn that one being Balin’s apprentice, did you?’

‘No. That was before.’ Ori turned his back on them. ‘It’s another dead end, isn’t it?’ And then, without waiting for Fíli’s confirmation: ‘Shouldn’t we go back up?’

‘Already? The stair goes further down still, it’s not a dead end yet. Who knows, we might end up back in the Halls proper. Or outside, even.’

There was something off in Fíli’s voice, something a little too bright that Kíli knew well. And he could have axed off his own toes when he realized. Ori had been worried about the safety of the tunnels. Someone had taught him mine sign, and stupid jokes, but he wouldn’t speak of them any more. Accidents did happen. No one in their house ever mentioned them, but both of them would know without being told. Uncle Thorin would be grim. Ma would be grimmer.

When Kíli and his brother had been old enough to learn mine sign, there had been no-one left to teach them.

Without another word, Ori started down the stairs and the two of them followed.

*    *    *   

After that last time – when they did end up in mining tunnels that were still in use and had to dodge a crew that would have told on them and got Fíli in trouble with his Master – Kíli was certain Ori had got enough of tailing the two of them. He’d been busy every time they had asked afterwards, and this time looked to be no different. Balin had said Ori had finished his tasks and gone to his brother’s house, and Fíli and Kíli were crossing the marketplace on their way to try and pry him away from the shop.

And then Kíli saw him, standing a little way back from where a train of wagons was setting to leave. There was a small bundle of gear at his feet, and he was wearing a long coat with the hood thrown back.

Ori didn’t look too pleased to see them. ‘Don’t you two ever have anything proper to do?’ he asked sharply.

‘Nothing that won’t keep,’ Fíli said. ‘Going somewhere?’

‘No-one would have me.’

Kíli knew why they wouldn’t: you needed a guardian or Master to go with you if you weren’t of age. The two of them _had_ tried, just to see if they could.

One by one, the wagons rolled away, and the three of them ambled slowly behind the caravan, following the noisy dwarflings who trailed after anyone leaving the Halls. When they stopped at the half-mile stone, the children had already dashed back into the mountain.

‘But I could have been of use!’ Ori suddenly burst out, and stared down the road with his arms folded atop the marker. ‘I can write out all the basic contracts! I can keep accounts! I can fish and forage– I can do lots of things if I they would just let me!’

Kíli looked at his brother, and saw him look as baffled as he felt, because Ori had been serious about this. ‘No-one with half a brain leaves an apprenticeship,’ he finally said, because someone had to say something, even if it sounded too harsh in his own ears. ‘Sure, Mister Dwalin has to be a pain in the tail if you have to live in his house, but Balin is not half that bad, is he? And he’s the one who’s your Master.’

Ori was quiet for a long time, and when he spoke, it was to the settling dust of the road.

‘Mister Dwalin I can live with; I’m used to people looking at me like they think I’ve done something. But I was _lucky_ to have Master Balin,’ he said in a tight voice. ‘I could not ask for anyone better. I would never leave. I don’t want to leave–’ he swallowed. ‘But it’s not like I have a choice, do I? It’s not like he can keep me.’

‘Ori,’ Fíli said carefully, ‘what in the blazes are you talking about? First of all, Dwalin wouldn’t have you in the house if he really thought you’d done something dodgy, not for a moment, and second – what did you do that you think is so awful? Bungle up some important job? Is that it? Because that’s nothing. Like Kíli was not two weeks in, when he ruined–’

‘No!’ Ori snapped and spun around to face them. ‘No! It’s because he thinks I’m stealing, that’s why, and there’s no way I can prove I’m not!’ He wasn’t crying, but he looked like he might start at any moment, only his voice was more angry than sad. ‘I bet Dwalin’s telling him “I told you so”!’

Kíli felt like laughing. Of all the completely ridiculous things. ‘What–’ he managed without quite giggling, ‘what would Balin think you even took? A ream of paper? Handful of quills? Durin’s beard, a book?’

‘His seal.’

‘His seal?’ Wait, hadn’t it... Of a sudden there was a cold lump lodged in Kíli’s chest, one he couldn’t swallow down no matter how he tried. He closed his mouth.

‘It’s been over two weeks missing, and as far as he knows it never left the house. It shouldn’t have left _his study_. And then he had me do an inventory, so that he can find out what else I took before kicking me out. And Dori was so proud, and it was such hard work getting me the apprenticeship… I can’t go and tell him it was all for nothing; it would be easier if I could just– go, like Nori.’ Ori stared down at his hands, curled into tight fists in front of him. ‘And better I was gone before I’m named a thief.’

‘Ori,’ Fíli started, ‘I would never believe you for a thief, not in a thousand years. Fine, Balin’s seal is missing; but why would he ever think you took it?’

‘Because I’m a brother to a branded thief, that’s why!’ This came out as a snarl, so bitter Fíli backed off a step.

‘But–’

‘But my brother is the most proper and honourable dwarf you could imagine, yes?’ Ori spat. ‘I know he is! But I have a sister, too, and she has a law-mark on her arm, and Dwalin knows it and Master Balin knows it, and it’s a wonder he ever took me in the first place, but now it’s all gone wrong, and we don’t even know if she’s even alive any more… and there’s nothing I can do, and nothing you can do, so you can just _stop_ and leave me alone!’ He spun on his heel and stalked back towards the mountain.

Fíli turned to go after him, then stopped when Kíli stayed where he stood. ‘Come on, Kee, we can’t just–’

Kíli couldn’t.

‘Kee? What is it?’

‘He didn’t take it.’

‘What?’

‘Ori didn’t take it. The seal. Because I did.’

‘Why ever would you… no, forget I asked. But you never told me!’

‘You were out with Thorin, remember? I got bored, thought I’d hide it for a lark. I swear, Fíli.’ He ran his hands through his hair. This was _not_ how it was supposed to go. ‘Balin never made a fuss so I thought it had turned up. Bloody near forgot all about it, until just now.’

‘What do you mean, “turned up”?’

‘In the laundry. There was a pile by the door, so I slipped it in when I went.’

‘And this was when?’ Fíli pinched his nose with two fingers and looked for a moment a bit too much like Uncle for Kíli’s comfort. And Fíli would kill him if he mentioned it.

‘When you were out with Thorin, I said. I don’t know! Do I look like I’m keeping track of your comings and goings?’

‘It’s almost two weeks since we got back.’ Fíli paused and looked at him with a frown. ‘You sure it was laundry? Because it would have turned up. No one who does Dwalin’s laundry would dare to nick anything of his or his brother’s.’

‘What else? Bunch of sheets and stuff.’ Kíli wrapped his arms around himself. The sun was turning to west and the cool shadow of the mountain had reached them. ‘I don’t want to tell Balin.’

‘Well you can’t have Ori thinking Balin thinks he’s a thief! Of all the stupid things!’

‘He doesn’t think Ori’s a thief,’ Kíli muttered.

‘No, but Ori thinks he does. And that’s not right.’

No. It wasn’t. But.

‘If I could find it… find out where it got to– then I wouldn’t have to tell!’

‘Kee…’

‘No, really. I could try looking for it first, and _then_ I’d tell. Please? Balin’s fine, I’ll do lines or some other old thing, but Dwalin? He’ll have me scrubbing mail. Or the blunt steels. Again. I’ll have more rust in me than the Iron Hills. Please? You don’t want a brother who’s gone all red and dusty, do you? And I’ll smell. And we share a room. Come on. What’s a few days?’

‘Two days to find out where it got to. And if we can’t find it, you’ll tell. And you tell Ori, no matter what. You tell him tomorrow.’

That he could do. ‘Deal.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cargo chutes running beside the stairs ~~stolen~~ borrowed from TAFKAB's take on Moria as it appears in her fabulous gigolas story [Nothing Gold Can Stay](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5791561/chapters/13468732).


	2. Chapter 2

‘And what are you two up to, this early in the morning?’

Kíli gave his mother his most innocent look across the kitchen table. ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘just got up early.’ Across the table Fíli went on wiping his plate clean of bacon grease with a heel of bread. Well, if he thought Kíli should be doing this on his lonesome, then that’s what he would do. ‘I thought you’d be happy that we’re on time.’

‘I doubt it’s for my happiness that you’ve been plotting. You best not dawdle on the way.’

‘Would we ever?’

‘I would if you never.’ She gave out a brief laugh. ‘Don’t try to lie to me, Kíli. You don’t have the face for it. Just remember that if I hear any complaint, I’ll make sure you’ll be doing cobbler’s nails by the barrel.’

‘But Ma! That’s such a boring-arse job!’

‘That’s an apprentice job, as I think is the making of mail rings. But as long as you don’t get up to anything you wouldn’t want me to hear about, you don’t have to fear which one I would choose.’

They were early at the Fundinul house, and it was Balin himself who let them in. Ori was nowhere in sight, and their teacher’s study felt emptier for that; in the past months he had become as much a fixture of their lessons in history or politics as Balin’s half-buried giant of a desk, or the bookshelves and cabinets lining the walls. This morning, however, the niche by the window was empty, and the pale light fell on a single closed book left on the pulpit where the apprentice scribe usually worked.

Kíli felt the cold uneasy knot from last night twist in his stomach again. Surely Ori had not torn off into the blue on his own? At least Balin didn’t look like someone who had just thrown a thief out of their house. But what did Kíli know? Maybe one would look exactly like Balin did now: calm and a bit smug.

He looked less so when Kíli couldn’t keep up. But being told off for woolgathering was nothing new. Kíli could learn any bloodline of long-gone kings if he needed to, and forget it the second he was done reciting it, and that was the worst manner of punishment Balin would come up with.

But where was Ori? The third morning bell marked their first full hour of studying, and already Kíli felt this close to blurting out the whole thing, damn the consequences, but with some last smidgen of caution he managed to hold his tongue.

It was almost time for the next bell when Ori slipped in with a quiet greeting to Balin. Kíli tried to catch his eye, but couldn’t.

‘You placed my order, then?’ Balin asked his apprentice.

‘Er– yes and no. For the ware sold in bulk, yes, they will deliver it from the next batch, but for the book I didn’t, because the Master at the Mill said, Master Lovís I mean, she said she would have you look at some samples first, but she would not let me bring any with me. I’m sorry.’

Balin frowned. ‘I wonder what that was about. I will need go down there myself, when I’m able – and you as well. It would be useful for you to learn a bit about that trade, too.’

Ori nodded quietly, and set to work, as if it was any old day. But he _sounded_ off, that was the only way Kíli could describe it. It was as if he wrote with more pauses, more staggers and hesitations than usual, and to hear those little silences punctuating the usually steady scritch-scritch of a quill on paper nagged at him, and Fíli, too, from the way he kept turning around to look.

He tried to slip off before they left, Ori did, but the brothers cornered him in the hallway. ‘Please listen,’ Fíli started and cast a quick glance over his shoulder, but all the doors to the house proper were closed.

‘Leave it, I said.’

‘Sorry,’ Kíli blurted out. ‘I’m sorry, but it was me. I took Balin’s seal and hid it for a lark.’

For a brief moment Ori gaped like he’d had the air punched out of him, then his eyes flashed and he looked like he might serve Kíli a punch instead. ‘You did _what?_ IDIOT.’

Kíli cringed, but he had been called worse.

Ori closed in on him until they were nose to nose, and damn it if they weren’t of a height, even if Kíli had the years on him. ‘It’s a tool, that seal,’ Balin’s apprentice hissed. ‘You’d steal somebody’s hammer or tongs and hide them just because you thought it was funny?’

‘He would, and he has.’ And Fíli was not doing him any favours.

Ori drew in a long breath through his nose. Then he suddenly poked Kíli at the chest, hard enough to make him back off a step. ‘You get it now, and then you give it back to Master Balin yourself, you stupid, mean mudbrain of a–’

‘I can’t. I don’t have it anymore.’

Ori went quiet, his mouth hanging lax. ‘You lost it?’

‘I didn’t mean to! I thought it was laundry, I swear! I wish it had been – the stupid thing would have turned up already.’

‘You hid it in the laundry – only it wasn’t laundry?’ Ori said slowly.

‘I don’t know! Some sack full of sheets and such, right here by your door… looked enough like laundry to me.’

‘Well, it wasn’t! That was waiting for the ragster.’

‘And…?’

Ori gave an exasperated little huff. ‘And it’s long gone now. You have to go and tell Master Balin you got his seal sold to the Mill; he will sort it out.’

‘NO! Or… he’ll tell Mister Dwalin and he’ll set me doing something horrible. I’ll fix it. I’ll get the thing back. Please don’t tell him.’ Kíli put on his best pleading face, the one that worked on everyone… except Ma and Mister Dwalin.

_‘I_ can hardly tell him if you won’t, can I? He’d only have my word on it.’

‘Good enough to get me in trouble.’

Ori said nothing, but wrapped his arms around himself, looking somehow deflated after his earlier outburst.

‘You said the rags got sold to the Mill,’ Fíli coaxed, ‘for what purpose?’

‘For making paper. Don’t you know anything? And there’s no way you’re getting it back from there, less you buy it from the guild. I said “sold”, didn’t I?’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure; Kíli’s quite good at sneaking into places…’ Fíli stopped at Ori’s horrified stare. ‘It’s not like it’s stealing if we’re only getting our own stuff back, is it?’

‘It was never yours to begin with. And you can’t just go sneaking into the Mill.’

_‘That_ I won’t believe ‘till I see for myself.’

Ori snorted. ‘Tell Master Balin you want to see the paperworks; maybe he’ll let you come along the day after tomorrow – he invited me to “learn”, after all.’

‘And you won’t tell?’

‘I said I _can’t_ tell. You tell him yourself when you see it can’t be done.’

‘Well– ouch!’ Kíli rubbed at the back of his head and scowled at his brother. ‘Why did you do that for?’

‘He’ll tell. Because it’s the decent thing to do.’

* * *

‘No!’ Fíli protested. ‘No Ma, he can’t come with us. I’m sorry Auntie Bawí, I am, but we’re going to the paper mill today with Master Balin; that’s no place for pebbles.’

‘I’m not a pebble!’

‘Yes you are, short stuff–  ow!’ Kíli rubbed at his shin. ‘What do you have in those boots, Gimli, rocks?’

‘I’ve got work boots, see?’ Kíli saw. Steel-capped, of all the silly things. Who ever gave a pebble steel-capped boots? Their daft uncle, that’s who.

‘Da said they keep my toes safe, and I tried with a hammer and it didn’t feel like anything–’ Gimli made a neat twirl on his heels– ‘but he didn’t let me take it with me and he carries hammers and axes and stuff around all the time…’

‘Honestly, Ma, he could get lost, or hurt himself–’

‘That’s exactly why you are to keep an eye on him. Or are you saying you’re not up to the task?’

Gimli kept trying to slip his hand off Fíli’s as the three of them walked down to the Fundinul house to meet up with Balin, and Fíli kept trying to rein him back.

‘I can keep up!’ their cousin insisted. ‘See!’ He bolted ahead of them as fast as his short legs would carry him, then stood waiting with his hands on his hips. ‘You’re slow!’

‘Well, there goes your chance to sneak anywhere,’ Fíli said under his breath. ‘Better you tell Balin and be done with it.’

‘What, no! _You_ keep him distracted when I take a look around.’ Kíli danced away from an elbow aimed at his ribs. ‘Please! I’ll trade you something for it!’

‘Speak up! I can’t hear you!’

‘You’re not supposed to, fluffball.’ Kíli tweaked at one of his cousin’s braids, short, flaming red and sticking off his head like the plumes on a thistle. ‘And it’s rude to eavesdrop.’

‘You’re being rude all the time, then!’

‘He’s got you there,’ Fíli laughed.

‘And you’re a fluffball yourself! And secrets are not fair!’

‘Too bad. Because this is very, very secret.’

‘Tell me!’

‘Nope. You’re too small, you’ll blabber.’

‘Won’t!’

‘No.’

‘Fíli, wait– actually, you wait too.’ Kíli paused to consider. ‘Yup. I have an idea. Gimli, what would you say if you could help with the big secret stuff?’

‘You tell me the secret first!’

‘Well… it’s a bit like a treasure hunt. Only it’s a secret one, and we don’t want anyone else to know that we’re looking for something.’

Gimli nodded solemnly.

‘So it would be excellent if someone… if someone very clever could make them look the other way.’

‘Is it a prank?’

‘Yes! I knew you’d be a clever one. It’s a prank, a _good_ one. So you’ll help?’

Gimli stuck out his hairless chin. ‘Aye, I can do that!’

‘I knew I could count on you– so here’s what we’ll do…’

* * *

The paper mill was a narrow two-storied building some distance away from the marketplace, on the level of the gates. Left to the front door, tall latticed windows reached almost to the ground, and the back of the Mill looked like it was hewn straight into the living rock; Kíli could not tell how far back it reached.

The door opened onto a tiny courtyard of stone, open safe for the roof of the cavern high above. There were two doors leading inside on the ground level, and a third on the second floor, atop a wooden stair switch-backing up the wall. Beside that was a winch, with a latch beneath it. They waited in the yard while an apprentice went fetching the Mill Master.

Master Lovís greeted them all with a slightly surprised air. ‘I expected you and your prentice,’ she said to Balin, ‘not half-a-dozen dwarflings.’

‘Fíli and Kíli are the sons of Lady Dís, and my students as well,’ Balin explained.

‘Please excuse us,’ Fíli cut in, ‘we’re here purely out of interest into the craft. My uncle, you understand, believes in a well-rounded education. To lead a people, he says, is to learn a little bit about everything there is to know–’

_–and not much about anything,_ Kíli could have continued, but right then he would not have interrupted his brother’s sweet-talking for anything, because it seemed to be working: neither of the adults had shut him up yet.

‘As I was saying,’ Fíli went on, a bright smile beaming on his face, ‘we’re very curious to learn more about the workings of the Mill. As for young Master Gimli here–’ he managed to still their fidgeting cousin with a hand on his shoulder– ‘he’s been entrusted to our care for the day and I will personally vouch for his good behaviour. He’s a smart lad, and our cousin.’

Kíli thought Balin looked like he was going to laugh. And yes, Fíli did lay it on a bit thick– he’d used as many words as their uncle on a bad day, and then some.

‘Very well, Fíli,’ their teacher eventually said, ‘myself and Master Lovís will hold you accountable for any misdeed young Gimli might think up on your watch.’

‘Fair enough,’ Master Lovís conceded. ‘Our business–’ this she said to Balin– ‘is upstairs, but in the interest of learning, we can take the long way around.’

Balin had no issue with this, quite the opposite.

The door on the right side of the courtyard opened into a long vaulted room. It was so large Kíli doubted there was room on this side of the Mill for anything else. Two rows of wide shallow basins were cut straight into the stone floor: those on the right were covered with wooden lids, while those on the left stood empty.

Kíli went closer and made to lift one lid. He was yanked back by the collar of his coat, and none too gently.

‘Best if you don’t, young master, unless you want to be revisiting your breakfast,’ said Master Lovís. ‘There’s rags retting under there, and the smell takes some getting used to.’

‘Retting?’ Ori quickly asked. ‘In the sense of fermenting, yes?’

The Master nodded, and now when Kíli noticed, there was a faint smell of decay hanging in the air, somewhat sour, like food gone off.

‘It softens the cloth enough for beating; and also makes the paper both strong and yielding, gives it weight, as it were. Some say it’s a finicky art, but I reckon it no more so than brewing a good ale – if you know the trick.’

The tricks here, apparently, were timing and temperature, among other things, but Kíli didn’t listen to half of what was said about protection from draft, and the softness of water, and so forth. He walked slowly with the others to the back of the room, to a door where he could hear a muffled, steady beating, as if from the forges.

‘You’re prenticed to someone, aren’t you?’ Master Lovís was standing with her hand on the door, holding it closed against Kíli’s grip on the handle.

‘With an armourer, Master, my uncle’s wife.’

‘Then you know to let the shop’s own people pass first,’ she said and opened the door.

They passed through another room where thick wooden poles stamped into wide open throughs with an incessant splash and thunk. Every now and then, the clank of sluices opening and closing could be heard, and the air was heavy with cold, clinging moisture.

Kíli peeked into a through, but it was filled with slow-flowing greyish swill, smooth but for the occasional larger lump. When Gimli reached on tiptoe next to him, he held him back by the back of his coat.

‘That’s deep enough for you to drown into.’

‘Lift!’ his cousin insisted. ‘I can’t see!’

Kíli lifted.

‘What’s that? Looks like goo.’

Kíli shrugged. ‘It’s what paper is before it’s paper.’ Fíli had been right, this was a waste of time. He heard Master Lovís speaking of washing and beating and pulp and spring floods and water driving the hammers, but it all melted into a single formless slop in his head, grey and senseless.

The third room downstairs was white. Light filtered through innumerable sheets of paper hanging from the lines stretched along the entire length of the room, and behind them, Kíli caught a glimpse of latticework – like the window at the front of the building, so they must be in the left-hand wing now. At the center of the room, a two-person team worked at a tall bench, illuminated by three large lamps encased in fine steel mesh that cast curiously pale shadows about.

The worker on the left looked up at their entrance, but his hands never stilled: they dipped a mould into a vat in front of him, then pulled the frame off and passed the mould over to his partner. She in turn handed him an empty mould to clip into the frame, and swiftly upended the one she’d received over a pile of – cloth, it looked like to Kíli – and flicked something over the top, ready for another exchange. The whole thing was like a dance, or a well-rehearsed swordplay form, flowing smoothly from one movement to another, with no need for halting or rushing or empty hands for either partner.

‘Can I… have a closer look?’ Ori asked quietly.

Kíli felt himself caught by the same curiosity, and when allowed, stood beside the young scribe to watch as the wood-framed mould sunk into the cloudy white water, and how the measured flicks of the paperwright’s hands caused the floating fibers settle into an even layer over the thin wire mesh. A quick transfer into another pair of hands, a swift flip, and a glistening sheet of paper fell neatly onto a square of smooth felt, visible only for the blink of an eye it took to fold another layer of cloth over it. The steady speed and apparent ease of the process spoke of such high skill Kíli could not help but admire it.

‘Now, young masters, how many sheets of paper do you think our team can make here in one day?’

‘Unfair, Lovís, asking pebbles a thing grown-ups end up losing bets over.’ This was said with a soft chuckle, by the third team member whom Kíli had thus far ignored. They were working next to a hefty-looking press set against one wall, carefully peeling dry – or at least not dripping – sheets of paper off the felts and laying them out in a neat stack over an easel. Light glinted on a long copper pin that held their dark hair up as they nodded. ‘Anyone who guesses within the right hundred gets a copper from me.’

It was a trick bet, of course. Kíli guessed at five hundred, Fíli at a thousand, to be one better. Ori pondered the question a good long while, then came up with nineteen hundred, which Kíli thought was surely an impossibility.

‘I say nineteen hundred thousand and ten!’ said Gimli.

The dwarf laying out the sheets smiled at that. ‘Not quite as many as that,’ they said, ‘not even in a year. What was our record again?’ This was directed at the workbench, where their colleague stopped with a dripping mould in his hands to consider an answer.

‘Three thousand, seven hundred and fifty-six,’ he finally said.

Kíli knew he wasn’t the only one gawping. _Surely_ no three people could make that amount in a single day! But then he watched the work at the bench resume once more, each movement spare and efficient, and wondered.

‘But that’s a record,’ said Master Lovís, ‘not your regular output.’

‘True enough. Two thousand would be what we make of the most common grade.’ They set a pile of felt sheets on the workbench where the sheet-layer could easily reach them and took out their purse. ‘Here you go, scribeling.’ They tossed a coin at Ori, who fumbled to catch it. ‘Not a bad head for numbers, to get a guess that close.’

Then they were back in the courtyard and climbed upstairs, into a room stacked with a great many canvas sacks bearing the Mill sigil, most of them closed, but some open and showing innards of tight-packed cloth. Kíli’s heart sank. There were so many of them. And too many people besides.

‘Oi! Lovís! What’s that lot?’

The voice came from behind the piled-up sacks, and standing on tiptoe, Kíli could see workbenches standing at the other end of the room.

‘Wait a bit, we’ll be coming through there. This,’ Master Lovís went on, speaking to her audience once more, ‘is where it all begins, and where all can be ruined as well.’ She pointed at Kíli. ‘You said you were learning to smith, didn’t you?’ When Kíli nodded, she continued. ‘Then must know already that the quality of the metal is the utmost limit. No-one has such skill at the forge that it would make good for an inferior material, and the same holds true here.’

Each of the workers stood before a strange sort of workbench. When they came closer, Kíli saw each bench was made up of slatted wooden boxes, half a dozen in a row, and each piece of cloth that the sorters lifted from the sacks beside them went into one of the boxes by some system of selection he could not readily understand.

That coarse should be separated from fine and coloured from white, that seemed simple enough – but then some fine whites went to a different box than the others that looked exactly the same. No doubt anyone who was that picky with bits of cloth would spot a misplaced seal once they came to it.

‘We buy all the cast-offs from the Halls, and also a fair amount from the lands without,’ the Mill Master said, ‘and all that put into one lot _would_ make paper, but it would hardly be worth the name. So we sort by grade.’

Kíli nudged at a canvas sack with the toe of his boot, not even trying to pretend at listening any more. One of these sacks held Balin’s seal. Probably. Likely, since these were closest to the door and newest. ‘But how in all the…’ he muttered under his breath.

He’d expected storeroom, someplace quiet where he could have slipped into to have a look around, not this wide open space with people working and chatting at one end, with no way to rummage about unnoticed.

A tiny steel-capped boot connected not-so-lightly with his unfortified one. ‘When’s that treasure-hunt going to start? This is boring.’

Kíli looked down at his small cousin. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it could start here, but there’s too many people. It’s not going to work out. Sorry.’

Gimli peered up at him with his head cocked, then nodded slowly. He was about to say something, when there was an echoing burst of laughter from the other side of the room, obviously due to something Fíli had said, given his defensive stance.

‘Pockets!’ a gravelly voice hooted. ‘Oh you don’t know a thing, young master; what we get up here is far too gone for _pockets_ . We hardly ever get _buttons._ These are called rags for a reason.’

‘But there _is_ a strange thing or two,’ said another voice. This was a wiry old dwarf who spoke without looking up from his work, snipping larger pieces of cloth into smaller bits with long-bladed scissors and flicking them to their destinations with practiced ease. ‘There was the one time we found gemstones and nuggets sewn into a seam,’ he said. ‘It might have been a shirt.’

‘Might be, and might be it was not. None of us was there to see it,’ the first speaker countered.

The old dwarf sighed, mostly for effect, or so Kíli thought. ‘That is true; I forgot I was working with _children_ these old days of mine,’ he quipped.

‘Let it lie, uncle. That’s a good story, but it was right after the dragon, and we _are_ too young to remember.’

‘Not much of a story, if you ask me, that one. Never got the owner tracked down. Could have been grandsire or grandam to one of you lads, for all we know–’ he nodded towards Balin’s company. ‘But none of it went to waste: the guild pension fund put everything to good use.’

Balin’s seal should not be hard to track if and when they came across it here, Kíli thought grimly. The whole _point_ of a seal was being recognizable. He ambled aimlessly across the room, and stopped when the sound of his footsteps suddenly rang hollow. He looked down and saw a wooden hatch set into the floor.

‘That’s the retting room down there; no need to carry the raw stuff down the stairs when we start a new batch.’ This was the old dwarf who had spoken of gold and gemstones, answering his question before he had a chance to ask it. Kíli had a strong hunch that very little passed in this room without his notice.

‘So if I were to jump up and down here–’ Kíli demonstrated, as if that was what had interested him in the first place– ‘I might fall right down into whatever smells so nasty down there?’

‘No. That’s on the other side. You’d fall into an empty vat and break an ankle.’

It was Fíli who answered, but Master Lovís nodded as well. ‘Paid attention to the floorplan, did you? Good. But I think we’re done here. If Master Hrói could see the young people out,’ she said to the old foreman, ‘while we discuss Master Balin’s order.’

That was when Kíli noticed Ori looking about him, then whispering urgently to Fíli. Fíli turned to look about, then fixed his gaze on Kíli.

‘Where did you leave Gimli?’

Kíli spun around to look. Looked again. Then he tried hard not to smile. It was all going to plan. ‘Gimli! We’re going!’ No answer. ‘You were supposed to watch him!’ he snapped at his brother.

‘I was! Last time I looked he was with you!’

‘Well he isn’t now!’

‘Look,’ Ori said, ‘he can’t be far. Maybe he went back the way we came.’

‘Down and through the washing room?’ Fíli grimaced. ‘Better hope he hasn’t fallen in.’

‘I will check downstairs with Ori, just to make sure,’ Balin said, ‘you two stay here.’ He spread his hands apologetically. ‘I am very sorry for the trouble, Master Lovís–’

The Master waved off his concern. ‘Just stop him from wandering my Mill unattended.’

When they had gone, the Master to her office, Balin and Ori downstairs, Kíli turned to the old dwarf in charge of the sorting room.

‘Would you mind if we looked around? Please? He’s hidden away before, when he got bored, and he’s small,’ Kíli reasoned. ‘Plenty of places to hide for a small one here.’

The foreman gave a lopsided shrug. ‘Go ahead. But mind yourselves; any mess you make is yours to sort out.’

Kíli did not quite whoop in triumph, but it was a close call. He went at once towards the sacks piled closest to the door, the newest ones. ‘I’ll check back here,’ he called to his brother.

He stepped gingerly between the piled-up sacks and called his cousin. Nothing. One sack at the top tier was gaping open. Kíli stole a cautious look at the other end of the room, and saw no one was paying absolutely no attention to him. So he plunged his hand into the rags inside and rummaged about. Nothing. He gave it up as a bad job and leaned over the pile to peer behind it. The gaps and hollows between the sacks were narrow, but Gimli was small. The dust rising from the rags as they were shifted floated everywhere in the room, and Kíli wrinkled his nose at the musty ticklish smell of it.

Of a sudden, someone sneezed, a muffled, high-pitched ‘spritch’, and that someone was very close.

‘Gimli?’ Kíli whispered. ‘You there, short stuff?’ There was a whispered affirmative behind the sacks to his right, then a hiss as if someone wanted him to keep quiet, then another, louder sneeze.

‘Kíli, you hear that?’ Kíli cursed under his breath. This was not the time for Fíli to pay attention.

‘Hear what?’

‘Someone sneezing. Gimli? Was that you?’

‘No.’

‘Then someone has learned the rags to talk, and they must be a wizard indeed,’ Fíli chuckled. ‘Found him!’ he called out. ‘Come on out, we’ve been looking for you.’

‘No.’

Kíli had slipped his hand in yet another sack when he suddenly felt it shift where he was leaning against it. ‘Gimli, get out of there! These things are heavy– you don’t want–’ He tried to pull the sack back into position, but it overbalanced and slid towards him instead, taking its neighbour with it. And packed cloth was heavy. Arms braced forward to ward off the collapse, Kíli stumbled back and fell over.

‘See?’ he snapped as soon as he got his breath back. There was something caught over his head, and a half-full sack sitting right across his stomach. He pulled at the cloth covering his head, but it was so sheer it shredded in his grip until he was left holding something almost like a fishing net.

‘Come out, Gimli, before we lose Kíli, too!’

‘Can’t,’ came a muffled reply right behind Kíli. ‘He’s sitting on my foot.’

‘I’m not!’ but he rolled away nonetheless. ‘Where are you?’

After a further bit of digging they managed to extract their cousin from his hiding-place.

‘I distracted good, right?’ he whispered, grinning, when he emerged.

‘What?’

‘Later, Fee.’

Fíli frowned, but shut up, and turned to the foreman instead. ‘I’m truly sorry about the mess,’ he said and gestured at the spilled rags.

‘Well, you did find the little lad all right. But you’re still going to tidy up after yourselves.’

‘We’d like nothing more, but we have–’

‘I’m sure I can spare them for a little while,’ said Balin from the door. ‘I’ll be in the office with Master Lovís. If we’ve left before you are done, you know where to go.’

‘I’ll help!’

‘Gimli, you help best if you stay out of the way.’

‘No! I’m helping, see!’ Gimli dove into the pile like an otter into a stream, and popped up dragging double handfuls of fraying cloth which he tried to stuff into the nearest open sack – which of course would not stay open.

‘Let me,’ Kíli said and held the sack open while reaching for more rags with his free hand. He cursed under his breath. This was pointless. He’d go to Balin tomorrow and tell him everything. At least that would help Ori. It didn’t matter if it was ridiculous that he thought people took him for a thief – it wasn’t right for him to feel bad over someone else's prank gone sour.

Balin would make him learn the line of the Grey Mountains kings in the Second Age, third cousins by marriage included, or something equally stupid – and Mister Dwalin would have him doing some dirty boring clean-up, or worse. Drilling axe forms. Kíli punched at the tight-stuffed cloth. He _hated_ working the axe. Stupid, too heavy, too unwieldy. Give him a sword any day, a spear even.

He grabbed another handful – and it felt wrong. A small hard something shifted inside the cloth. Kíli swore, and not quietly enough. Nope, had to be some other piece of junk. But as he dug deeper, his fingers closed around metal. He glanced quickly about him to see if anyone else had noticed. The foreman was looking at him with a suspicious quirk of his eyebrows, but only made an impatient ‘keep doing what you were doing’ gesture.

Kíli dropped his gaze, but his cheeks ached from the effort of keeping a level face. He hunched up his shoulders to hide the movement when he opened his hand to peek at the seal – it was a seal, anyway, not junk – and shoved it down his shirt.

Balin had already gone when they were finished, so the three of them walked down to the training grounds themselves. It was only after they had returned Gimli to his parents, apologized for their lateness and gone to change for a round themselves when Kíli had his chance.

‘I found it,’ he hissed.

Fíli frowned at him. ‘That’s not even funny,’ he then said.

‘No, honestly. Wait a bit–’

‘That looks more than a bit suspicious,’ his brother commented when Kíli loosened his belt a notch and crammed a hand under his shirt.

‘Shut it– looks nothing like the time you got a fried whitefish down _your_ shirt– a-ha!’ The seal fell onto his palm, and it was indeed Balin’s. With that, the anxious lump in Kíli’s gut seemed to melt and ease at last.

‘That was both greasy and hot, so I’d like to see you not wriggling…’ Fíli stopped and gave a quiet whistle. ‘You lucky bastard.’

‘Tell that to Ma.’ Kíli slipped his prize into his purse, which bulged under the added weight.

‘I’ll tell her you look like you emptied her cash box.’ Fíli laughed. ‘You’ll give that back tomorrow?’

‘No, the next lesson–’ he held up a finger when Fíli made to speak– ‘I have an idea. But don’t tell Ori yet.’

‘Kíli– you _have_ to tell him: you’ve seen how he is.’

‘It’s only two days – and I need him to be properly surprised.’

‘Fine. But I don’t want to know. When it falls flat, at least I can say that I honestly didn’t have the foggiest.’

‘It won’t. Wait and see.’

And for once Kíli worked at his forms, axe and all, without complaining, and only grinned wider at the puzzled frown on Mister Dwalin’s face. Even in the afternoon, when Auntie Bawí set him to making hobnails for the rest of the day, he didn’t gripe. Much.

* * *

In a way, it was a pity Kíli couldn’t concentrate. He usually liked studying old battles, even if getting down to the strategy proper meant first having to write down the names of the captains and chiefs for a penmanship exercise. Now, although he didn’t quite rush his work, he put even less care in it than was his wont, because what did it matter if his strokes were a mile off and crooked? He was but biding his time until an opportune moment presented itself.

Finally, Balin was busy reading whatever stack of papers he had at hand, and Ori absorbed in his copying work – far fancier and fiddlier than anything Kíli or his brother did – sitting safely across the room by the window.

Kíli finished the line he was writing and made an attempt to reach for more ink, only to tip the bottle neatly over the edge of the table and down to the floor where it didn’t quite crack, made of solid good glass as it was, but only rolled off, spilling ink as it went. ‘Well, shit,’ Kíli said quietly, and bit the inside of his cheek to stifle a grin. ‘I’m sorry…’ he glanced up at Balin, then down at the ink-stained floor. ‘I’ll just, you know. Clean up.’

Balin barely glanced up from his reading. ‘You know where the supplies are. But try to remember that while ink sweeps off the floor, it is not actually cheap as dirt.’

Kíli stood up to get the cleaning supplies, ignoring the looks from his brother and Ori, one suspicious, the other worried. Most of the ink had spilled right next to his desk, but there was a long, narrowing trail that led to the cabinet standing at the back corner of the room. The bottle had apparently rolled right under the heavy old thing. Perfect.

As he approached the cabinet, Kíli dropped the ink-soiled rag into the bucket and took a clean one. The one he had prepared beforehand. He made a show of reaching under the cabinet to retrieve the inkwell, and to scrub out any remaining stains. Then he stopped, dropped the cloth on the floor and peered intently under the shadow under the old monster. Then he reached out again, as far as he could, and drew his hand back out again holding Balin’s seal.

The pleased whistle came out on its own accord, but it might be taken for surprise. ‘Master Balin,’ he called out. ‘Could you please take a look? I found something.’ He held out the seal. ‘It was under the cabinet, all the way back against the wall.’ In other words, in a spot easily overlooked in a cursory search.

‘Why, if it isn’t my seal!’ Balin exclaimed. ‘However can it have ended up there?’

‘It rolls.’ Kíli tipped his hand and let the seal roll the length of his open palm before dropping it into Balin’s hand. ‘Was it missing?’

‘You might say so.’ Their teacher shook his white head, then crouched down to peer under the cabinet himself. ‘I wonder…’ he shrugged. ‘Never mind. Thank you, Kíli. Who knows how long it might have been left lying back there, with none the wiser, if not for you.’

That took Kíli back a little. ‘Er… Master– sir, that is the first time I got thanks for spilling ink.’

‘Take that as a lesson: there is a first time in everything.’

This time, Kíli didn’t have to hide his mirth. Ori looked from him to Balin and back again with his mouth slightly open, then seemed to come back to himself and quickly bent back to his work. Fíli, on the other hand, gave him a proper thumbs-up the moment Balin had his back on them.

_Well_ , Kíli thought as he restocked the cleaning gear and put the used washcloths into the laundry – and yes, he checked, it truly was laundry this time. There was even the household mark on the bag. _That turned out all right, didn’t it?_

But of course  _that_ didn’t quite end there. Both Kíli and his brother had got an earful from Glóin and Bawí for losing Gimli – their little cousin had blabbered, or Balin had told, but it didn’t matter which. What mattered was that they ended up scrubbing rusty steels at Bawí’s shop after hours for an entire week. However, Gimli was admirably sticking to the ‘I just got lost’ version of the story, and kept mum as far as distractions and treasures were concerned. Kíli treated him to honey-baked walnuts to keep it that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name Bawí (Gimli's mother) comes from Adûnaic _bawīb_ = winds. (Since Gimli's name is Adûnaic for 'star', it made sense to me to have a sky-related sky name for his mother as well.) The other OC names are made up from scratch.
> 
>  And this is the chapter where I went all overboard with world-building. Details on pre-industrial paper-making (European method) lifted mostly from [here](http://paper.lib.uiowa.edu/european.php) and [here](http://web.ceu.hu/medstud/manual/MMM/paper.html). Any and all misunderstandings, misconceptions and mistakes are mine.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more of a coda than anything else, just me wrapping up a couple of loose ends, as it were. I love writing these kids *sigh*.

#### Some months later

‘You call this a path?’ Kíli looked up the sheer cliff face. ‘And weren’t we going fishing, not rock-climbing?’

‘Yes. It’s through here.’ Ori slung his bag and fishing gear to hang diagonally over his back and disappeared behind an outcrop of rock.

The brothers followed, and true enough, there was a crack, barely wide enough for them to walk in single file, leading steeply upwards.

‘There’s a few tricky bits, but it levels out at the top!’ he could hear Ori call down.

‘This is what you call a “tricky bit”? I don’t want to see what you call “impassable”.’ Kíli grumbled half an hour later as he braced his feet against one wall of the crevice, and his back and elbows against the other, and slowly inched upwards.

‘There used to be better handholds–’ There was a scuffing sound above him and a handful of dust floated down and settled on his face. ‘Sorry!’ Ori said. ‘It was better before it flooded.’

‘Flooded?’

‘There was so much snow that one winter, don’t you remember? And don’t whine, you’re taller than me, it should be easier.’

Kíli could hear Fíli laughing below him. ‘You heard him – get your lazy butt moving so I can get up too!’ He felt a none-too-gentle poke at the back of his thigh with something that had to be a fishing rod.

It was annoying, that’s what it was: the walls on either side of them had grown lower and lower as they climbed upwards, but where the cleft narrowed down to nothing, the flat level of rock above them was still barely low enough for them to toss their gear up, but too high for him to get proper a hold on the edge and scramble up. Kíli gave one final push with his legs and got first his elbows, then the rest of his upper body over the ledge. When he rolled to his knees, out of breath, he saw Fíli passing fishing rods over to Ori.

And then the bloody show-off  had to leap, grip the ledge and pull himself up, easy as anything. One day, Kíli swore, one day he’d be the taller one, even if he had to eat his beard. Then he turned around and couldn’t help whistling.

Now _that_ was what a lake was.

At its widest, it was maybe a furlong across, but it was wider than it was long, curving in a vague crescent-shape away from where they were standing. Following the water’s edge with his eyes, Kíli could see the point where a solitary stream ran over and around a scramble of jutting rocks to fall into the lake in white-laced curls of blue. A thin fringe of scraggly fir-trees grew about it, and above the treeline slate-grey peaks rose sharp against the blue summer sky to shelter the small valley. Of a sudden, as if called forth by his curiosity, a fish broke the mirror-bright surface of the water, hung in the air in a brief suspended flash of spray and silver, and plunged back in.

‘Wow.’

‘Well, it’s a lake and it has fish in it.’ Ori said drily. ‘Come, there’s a good spot for a fire a little further up.’

They set their gear in a snug little hollow between the rocks where a blackened patch marked the site of earlier fires. There was just enough level ground around the firepit, Kíli noticed, that the three of them could have stayed the night, if they had a mind to.

Ori kept fiddling with this and that and the other thing, and Kíli had a mind to tell him to stop fussing, when their friend suddenly froze where he was crouching by the rocks. He leaned forward to peer into a crack, then drew something out.

‘What is it?’ Fíli asked. ‘Did you find something?’

Ori held out his hand, and the sunlight reflected off bright metal in the cup of his palm.

‘A lure?’ But it was a strange one; a tuft of black-and-white feathers tied to the head end of the flat polished fish-shape with a faded reddish thread. ‘So someone’s forgotten–’

Ori shook his head fiercely. ‘I’ve never known anyone else to come here – there was never no other trace of a fire…’ he trailed off. ‘But it’s not mine, either,’ he finished feebly.

‘You sure? You said you hadn’t been up here in awhile.’

‘Two summers,’ Ori muttered.

Kíli looked at the lure: the steel was polished to a high sheen, without a single speck of rust to mar its brilliance.

‘No,’ Fíli said, ‘that’s never been up here two summers – I’m guessing someone found your secret fishing spot in the meanwhile.’

‘And lost a spitting new lure the last time they were at it, end of story. Can I have a go with it – it looks like a catcher.’

‘No.’ Ori snatched his find back when Kíli made a grab for it. ‘No you can’t.’

‘Spoilsport.’

Ori pocketed the lure. ‘Finders keepers. And besides...’ He frowned and gave a little shake of his head. ‘Nevermind. I’ll try it out later.’

Later, however, was not later that same day, no matter how Kíli wheedled. But that didn’t mean they were left empty-handed: even if the fish were not overeager, the three of them caught enough to take home. They had brought bread and cheese and small beer in their packs, but mostly forgot about all that, since fried trout still warm and crispy from the fire was a perfect meal in itself.

Afterwards, Kíli wanted to have one last go at the fish, even if the sun was already westering. He did manage two good throws, with no luck, when his brother miscalculated the arch of his own line, and his lure ended up tangled in Kíli’s hair.

‘At least it’s only your hair,’ Ori said as he was prying the hook off. Fíli had been no help, and had only got it knotted worse. ‘Because, you know, I got one in my ear once, when I was little.’

Kíli winced, first in sympathy, then at the tugging at his scalp.

‘Sorry– anyway, it stung like anything, and Dori was _so_ mad; I thought he’d burst, and that was after Nori–’ Kíli could hear him swallow. ‘After Nori had already got it out. And it wasn’t even her fault,’ Ori went on in a firmer voice. ‘It was my own stupid backcast. There you go.’ He handed Kíli the lure he’d liberated from his hair. ‘Finders keepers, eh?’

‘You’re _not_ keeping that!’ Fíli protested. ‘That’s my best one!’

‘Not anymore it isn’t! It’s _my_ best one now – why did you even have to go and get it stuck in my head for?’

When that argument wound down, it was getting well and truly dark. Ori blamed them for dawdling on purpose to stay the night. The blankets they had both packed did not help their cause, even if they had been only for in case of anything unexpected – Ori argued that them fighting over nothing was not unexpected. Kíli could tell his brother was just about to snap at Ori for calling his best lure ‘nothing’, but Fíli managed to hold his tongue.

‘Dori will nail me to the shop floor for the rest of the summer, wait and see.’ Ori muttered glumly, but set out to build up their little fire. It turned out he was no stranger to overnighting out of doors – only he’d never done so by himself, and certainly not without telling beforehand.

‘Don’t fret,’ Kíli said, and helped himself to a bit of cheese to go with his toasted bread. ‘You did tell him where we’d be going for the day, didn’t you?’

‘And besides,’ Fíli added, ‘I don’t think he’s the kind to run into the night after you – not when he can go complaining at our Ma first.’

‘And she’ll tell him we do this _all_ the time,’ Kíli said between bites.

‘And that she tells us off _all_ the time, and we still do it. But the point is, she’ll tell Dori you’ll be home in one piece in the morning.’

‘But you’re right about one thing – he will nail your boots to the shop floor for the summer.’

‘If Balin won’t stop him.’

‘Oh he will, he needs his apprentice at his own house, after all – not much use if you’re stuck at your brother’s shop, are you?’

Ori wasn’t convinced, but there was little to be done – no one in their right mind would try scaling down the so-called path without proper light. The night was mild, and with the fire warming their sheltered niche, two blankets were plenty for the three of them.

For what little sleeping they did. Fíli tried to get a start on Ori with creepy stories, but it was no good: Ori knew plenty of his own, and it quickly turned into a competition. The young moon rose higher and higher in the starry sky, its knife-thin crescent reflecting in the clear still surface of the lake. There was no wind, but birds and critters made enough noise even unseen, and there was the occasional splash from fish catching night-time insects, the sound magnified in the near-darkness. Telling tales of bloody murder was all well and good, Kíli thought to himself as the fire started to die down, but it was nicer when you could sleep with rock _over_ your head afterwards.

* * *

They were nearly in sight of the gates when Ori saw his brother walking towards them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he started as soon as they caught up, ‘we meant to be back by nightfall, but Kíli got a hook caught in his hair and it was getting too dark to go down safely and– and I brought fish,’ he finished, holding out the brace of trout.

‘So I see. I met with Lady Dís last night, and she told me these two… young fools–’ Ori could hear the more unkind words in the pause Dori made– ‘had camping gear with them.’

‘Only for emergencies, Master–’

‘Wasn’t it a good thing we had!’

Ori said nothing. _Their_ mother had not come out of her way to fetch them back.

‘Yes. But it would have been better if you had got my brother home before nightfall. He has work to do, and I have a shop to open.’

‘They’re not my minders.’ Ori muttered, but it was as if Dori had not heard.

‘Please do warn me beforehand next time you want to stay out overnight,’ he said. ‘I had Master Balin calling at my house last night, and then I needed to enquire after the three of you at Lady Dís’ house myself. It would have saved many people a lot of trouble to plan ahead.’

 _You would only have said no,_ Ori thought. Aloud, he said nothing, but let his brother go on until he was out of fussing.

Dori eventually finished with ‘Come visit tonight, if you have the time,’ in a tone that made it clear it was no suggestion. ‘We could have the fish for dinner.’

Ori agreed – what else was he to do – and they parted soon after passing through the great gates. Luckily, he was not so very late from any planned work, since the three of them had set out as soon as it was barely light. He still received from Master Balin much the same scolding as from his brother, but no punishment. Ori remembered the many many mornings his two friends had appeared late to their lessons, and wondered now how many an unplanned foray they had managed together.

That evening, he had barely the time to slip back home before nightfall. Dori hugged him briefly at the door. ‘Please don’t do that again,’ his brother said. ‘You made me worry, and I do not believe I need sleepless nights from both of you.’

Confused, Ori stepped into the kitchen, and froze in place. There at the table, lean, sunburned, and with a steaming platter in front of her, sat Nori. ‘Hi there, pebbling–’ and that was as far as she got before Ori tackled her in a fierce hug, the sudden joy bubbling out of him in giggles and tears. For a while, his sister simply held him quietly, smoothing out his hair with a slow careful hand.

‘I’m not to stay, poppet,’ she said. ‘I’m only here until the day after tomorrow. But that’s long enough for news: I hear you’ve got yourself a fine apprenticeship, and some interesting new friends.’ There was laughter in her voice. ‘I’ll trade you a story for story – care to tell me how you ended up in trouble as soon as I wasn’t looking?’

Ori didn’t have to think twice; it was a bargain. So he told of the fishing trip, and how he had found a lure exactly like Nori used to make – or exactly like Nori still made, as it turned out, so he hadn’t imagined the likeness, after all – and how they had ended up spending the night out on the mountain without ever planning to.

Nori laughed in all the right places and ruffled his hair. ‘But that was fun, wasn’t it?’ She asked with a grin. ‘You’d had good practice, after all. I told you it wasn’t worth all that fussing,’ she said to Dori. ‘We’ve done that dozens of times. And he’s not a child.’

‘He’s not of age either.’

‘Children don’t get apprenticeships with Balin Fundinul,’ Nori pointed out. ‘You’ve done fine by him, Dori. _Amad_ would be proud.’ Dori looked at her for a long moment, and there was silence around the table. It was a familiar kind of silence, heavy and soft and sad, and Ori had never quite understood it; he had been too young to remember.

‘So, Ori,’ his sister eventually said, pushing away her plate. ‘Did I tell you that I got a job on a ship?’

‘Really?’

‘A small one, there’s but a dozen of us crewing it. But I hear our cook and navigator is a halfling, if you can believe such a thing.’ Ori could hear Dori scoff at the outlandish tale, but Nori only laughed. ‘I’ll tell you the truth of that the next time I come by. But that may be awhile yet – we’re going all the way down south to the lands of Men, then back. Might be I’ll be here for the winter–’ she paused, looking first thoughtful, then shrewd.

‘I wonder if your Master would spare you for a summer when you’re a bit older,’ she mused. ‘We could go off together: there’s bound to be work for a good scribe in a merchant caravan, and easy enough for me to get a job in one.’

Nori was still talking when Dori started muttering darkly about the sort of caravan that would hire Nori as a guard, and Nori shot back that Dori had never complained about the money she had brought in – and Ori had had enough of his siblings fighting to waste this precious evening listening to it.

‘Oi!’ The two turned to stare at him, and Ori realized he must have slammed his hand on the table when he jumped up, because one of the cups was still shaking. ‘I–’ he stammered. ‘I’d love to go abroad with you, some day. But right now... you know how Master Balin goes away on King’s business sometimes, and I think I might get to go with him the next time he does. Might be this year, even.’ The last part was a bit of wishful thinking, but at least neither Dori nor Nori could argue against any of it. Apprentices traveled with their Masters all the time, after all.

‘Why haven’t you told me anything about this before?’ Dori asked.

‘It’s not certain yet, and I didn’t want to tell you until it was.’

‘Just don’t expect anything too fancy because you’re on King’s business: the nobby sort sleeps under the same stars as the rest of us.’

‘I know that, Nori! Or wouldn’t you call Fíli and Kíli a “nobby sort”?’

Nori smirked. ‘I don’t know if you can be both a nob and a troublemaker. How ever did you even get mixed up with those two?’

Ori shrugged carefully. ‘They study with Master Balin.’ His sister lifted one eyebrow, but said nothing, which was just as well. Ori could tell her about illicit spelunking later. For now, he only told of the one time the brothers had managed to persuade him to come _into_ the training grounds with them, with mixed results, because he thought it might amuse Nori.

It did, but then she put on a thoughtful face. ‘You should see about getting him trained properly,’ she said to Dori. ‘He’s old enough.’

To Ori’s surprise, Dori didn’t outright refuse, but said that he’d think about it.‘Kíli wants to teach me how to shoot a bow,’ he heard himself saying.

‘A ranged weapon weapon has its uses,’ his brother agreed. ‘Tea, anyone?’

‘Only if you make it strong and sweet enough to melt my spoon.’

‘A waste of decent tea, that’s what you are,’ Dori huffed, but without any true bite behind his words.

‘Never said I wasn’t. But still you keep wasting it on me– tell me again, brother, which one of us does that make a fool?’ Nori jibed good-naturedly, and turned back to Ori while Dori put the kettle on the range. ‘As I was saying, a bow’s good for hunting, whether you be after game or–’ she paused for effect– ‘orcs. There was this one time on the road to the Iron Hills – we had just come down from the pass, when…’

Nori went on to dress up a simple skirmish into a grand adventure, and if Ori noticed the embellishment, he said nothing because she was obviously enjoying herself. They’d be time tomorrow when he could tell her of walking the old tunnels, and gazing out into the West from an abandoned lookout, and watching Mister Dwalin yell and glare at other people – Ori was sure she would see the fun in that – but there would be at least one tale she would not share.

Because what happened to Master Balin’s missing seal – well, that was a story that he felt belonged only to those who had been in it, and he rather liked it that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do yourself a favour: don't Google "fishing hook accidents". And this is coming from someone who's not easily squicked out by any medical stuff. (Let's just say my working PC has a very interesting and graphic search history at times.)
> 
> Also, my beta wanted more of Nori, so you can blame her for the last 900 words or so ;p
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you want to come and say hi, I'm [katajainen over at tumblr](https://katajainen.tumblr.com/), too (an utterly random multi-fandom blog, occasionally nsfw).


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